The invention relates to a portable carrier for a pair of skis and a pair of ski poles, and to safe retention of the same.
Various devices have in the past been proposed for the unitary retention of a pair of skis and a pair of ski poles, for ready portability and ease of operation. Several of these prior devices rely upon hinged articulation of parts, there being exposed ski-accommodating and ski-pole-accommodating cavities when parts are moved to "open" condition, and these cavities being closed to retain the skis and the poles when the parts are articulated to "closed" position. Of these hinged devices, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,892,343 (Warner) and 4,059,209 (Grisel) are illustrative of a so-called clam-shell variety wherein like opposed frames are hinged at one end and have ski-receiving and pole-receiving cavities which cooperate in the closed position to retain the skis and the poles, the closed position being retained by removable fastening of the unhinged ends. And U.S. Pat. No. 3,990,655 is illustrative of a further hinged variety, involving a central upstanding frame to which the opposite sides of separate ski and pole retaining side panels are hinged, at the bottom edge of the central frame. In all cases, multiple cavity levels are interposed between hinge and fastening locations, thus dictating a multiple-cavity span of panel or shell parts, with attendant structural complexity and use of materials or numbers of parts to achieve given security and portability requirements.